Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
When Is it Ethical to Publish Stolen Data?
From the Pentagon Papers to Hollywood e-mails, reporters and editors face complex decisions when it comes to reporting on information from hackers and leakers
ARTICLE BY
HELEN LEWIS
@helenlewis
Illustration by Anna Parini
When Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps on March 24, the deaths of the 150 people on board were initially assumed to be a tragic accident. But within 48 hours, a transcript of the plane’s voice recorder was leaked to the media. It revealed that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had set the aircraft on a collision course. Just before the plane crashed the pilot, who was locked out of the cockpit, could be heard screaming, “Open the damn door!”
The recording was evidence that the crash was not an accident, but a deliberate act of mass murder. It duly led news bulletins around the world. But should the media have published the transcripts, particularly when the investigation was still in progress? The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations condemned the leak, calling it a “breach of trust” with investigators and victims’ families that harmed flight safety by stoking “uninformed” speculation.
The media were unmoved. There was no navel-gazing about the ethics of publishing the transcript, and no groundswell of public opinion against it. That makes it relatively unusual among cases involving leaked, stolen, or hacked information, which often provoke controversy. Such sources are familiar ways to obtain stories—consider the impact of the Pentagon Papers being leaked in 1971—but the emergence of WikiLeaks in 2006 made it clear they will become ever more important in the digital era. Since then, there have been questions over the publication of Sony executives’ corporate e-mails in late 2014, the publication of leaked celebrity nude photos last August, and Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about the extent of U.S. intelligence operations.
Journalists have been accused of invading privacy, threatening national security, and breaching copyright by publishing such stories, and their sources might lose their jobs, their freedom, or even their lives. So how should reporters and editors decide whether to publish and how much to redact? And what technical know-how do they need to protect whistleblowers?
From the Pentagon Papers to Hollywood e-mails, reporters and editors face complex decisions when it comes to reporting on information from hackers and leakers
ARTICLE BY
HELEN LEWIS
@helenlewis
Illustration by Anna Parini
When Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps on March 24, the deaths of the 150 people on board were initially assumed to be a tragic accident. But within 48 hours, a transcript of the plane’s voice recorder was leaked to the media. It revealed that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had set the aircraft on a collision course. Just before the plane crashed the pilot, who was locked out of the cockpit, could be heard screaming, “Open the damn door!”
The recording was evidence that the crash was not an accident, but a deliberate act of mass murder. It duly led news bulletins around the world. But should the media have published the transcripts, particularly when the investigation was still in progress? The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations condemned the leak, calling it a “breach of trust” with investigators and victims’ families that harmed flight safety by stoking “uninformed” speculation.
The media were unmoved. There was no navel-gazing about the ethics of publishing the transcript, and no groundswell of public opinion against it. That makes it relatively unusual among cases involving leaked, stolen, or hacked information, which often provoke controversy. Such sources are familiar ways to obtain stories—consider the impact of the Pentagon Papers being leaked in 1971—but the emergence of WikiLeaks in 2006 made it clear they will become ever more important in the digital era. Since then, there have been questions over the publication of Sony executives’ corporate e-mails in late 2014, the publication of leaked celebrity nude photos last August, and Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about the extent of U.S. intelligence operations.
Journalists have been accused of invading privacy, threatening national security, and breaching copyright by publishing such stories, and their sources might lose their jobs, their freedom, or even their lives. So how should reporters and editors decide whether to publish and how much to redact? And what technical know-how do they need to protect whistleblowers?
